Theodore Lyman II (September 20, 1792 – July 18, 1849) was an American philanthropist,

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

, and author, born in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, the son of Theodore Lyman and Lydia Pickering Williams. He graduated from Harvard in 1810, visited

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

(1812–14), studied law, and with

Edward Everett Edward Everett (April 11, 1794 – January 15, 1865) was an American politician, Unitarian pastor, educator, diplomat, and orator from Massachusetts. Everett, as a Whig, served as U.S. representative, U.S. senator, the 15th governor of Mass ...

, revisited Europe in 1817–19. From 1819 to 1822 he was an aide to John Brooks, the

Governor of Massachusetts The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces. Massachuset ...

. He became brigadier general of militia in 1823, and from 1820 to 1825 he served in the State Legislature,

Mayor of Boston

In 1833 Lyman defeated William Sullivan, the Whig candidate, and was elected the first Democratic Mayor of Boston. He served for two years from January 1834 through January 1836. Lyman was such a popular mayor that when he ran for reelection he was nominated by the Whigs.

Views on Slavery and Equality

As Mayor of Boston, Lyman had to keep the peace between radical

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

s, and industrialists who feared anti-slavery agitators would cause southern plantation owners to cut ties with the northern mills and merchants. In August 1835 he presided over an anti-abolition meeting in Boston itation??and then, a few weeks later, during an anti-Abolitionist riot, he rescued

William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he foun ...

from the

mob Mob or MOB may refer to: Behavioral phenomena * Crowd * Smart mob, a temporary self-structuring social organization, coordinated through telecommunication Crime and law enforcement * American Mafia, also known as the Mob * Irish Mob, a US crimin ...

and confined him to jail to save his life. He was a liberal benefactor of the

Massachusetts Horticultural Society The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, sometimes abbreviated to MassHort, is an American horticultural society based in Massachusetts. It describes itself as the oldest formally organized horticultural institution in the United States. In its m ...

and of the Farm School and was the founder of the State Reform School for Boys, a

reform school A reform school was a penal institution, generally for teenagers mainly operating between 1830 and 1900. In the United Kingdom and its colonies reformatories commonly called reform schools were set up from 1854 onwards for youngsters who wer ...

Westborough Westborough is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,567 at the 2020 Census, in over 7,000 households. Incorporated in 1717, the town is governed under the New England open town meeting system, headed ...

to which he gave $72,000. Grave of Theodore Lyman II

Writings

* ''Three Weeks in Paris'' (1814) * ''The Political State of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

'' (1820) * ''Account of the

Hartford Convention The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings from December 15, 1814, to January 5, 1815, in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, in which the New England Federalist Party met to discuss their grievances concerning the ongoing War of 1812 and ...

'' (1823); in which he defended those who were concerned in that convention as an expression of harbored hatred for both Presidents, John Adams and J.Q. Adams. (SEE

Essex Junto The Essex Junto was a powerful group of New England Federalist Party lawyers, merchants, and politicians, so called because many in the original group were from Essex County, Massachusetts. Origins and definition The term was coined as an inv ...

) * ''The Diplomacy of the United States with Foreign Nations'' (1828); a work which is still valuable for the period covered.

Footnotes

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyman (militiaman), Theodore Harvard University alumni Mayors of Boston 1792 births 1849 deaths Writers from Boston Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 19th century in Boston 19th-century American politicians Historians from Massachusetts 19th-century American philanthropists

Mayor of Boston

Views on Slavery and Equality

Writings

See also

Footnotes